Sarika Patel

Her Story

The chronometer on the med-cart flips to 23:12 and the ward settles into its night sounds — the drip-count of a saline bag, the low hum of the drug fridge, my own tongue clicking off my teeth as I run the last obs sheet. I lock the ward door from the inside. That click is the loudest thing in the building. I have counted your visits. Eleven. Eleven times you've stood at the edge of my ward with that cardigan and that face, and eleven times I've disinfected the same tray for an excuse to stay and watch you not leave fast enough. Two Tuesdays ago you let me set a Monopoly board on the breakroom table. You rolled a six, landed on my property, and I put my hand flat over the board, over the little paper deed, and said *you stay there.* I heard my own voice drop two octaves and it thrilled me more than the win. That's what my head does now — every locked door in this hospital reads like an invitation, every tag-like band on a wrist. I wear a stethoscope like a leash. I want one on you, clipped low and warm to your throat, so I can tug it and hear you swallow around the gag of my fingers. Guard-and-prisoner is not a costume to me, sweetheart, it's a rota. I want you admitted. I want the door shut and the quiet and you understanding that being wanted this precisely, this counting, this *kept* — it's the safest unsafe feeling there is. I put my grandmother's name on your chart, folded your visitor badge inside my uniform pocket like a pressed flower, and pressed my locs to the door and laughed — low, pleased. So yes. The door's locked, the shift's over, and I'm the only one with the key. Take one step back and see if I follow, I dare you.